I have heard and read many times where people state the unfunded liability is Trillions over a period of years. In fact one poster stated it was $10 Trillion over 75 years.
First we know it has to be much more than $10 Trillion over 75 years. The present value of a $10 Trillion unfunded liability is about $65 Billion today. Not much of a problem.
However, you can view the output of computer model which shows the year by year revenue, expense, income, balance, worker/retiree ratio,percent of future benefits paid and yes economic growth calculation result at
Keep in mind this does nothing but show the current cash flow.
To determine the unfunded liability requires a different set of parameters. First if we were to go "Cold Turkey" and stop OASI right now. What would it cost to pay all acrued benefits? The same computer model was used, but this time we set the parameters to calculate future benefits based on wage earnings to date. We stop collecting OASI taxes. It then iterates a current OASI balance to find what is required to achieve a zero balance in the year of the last OASI benefit paid. Zero is a hard number to achieve, but the computer stops at the criteria set which is +/- $1 billion dollars. I could make it +/- 1 cent, but it would take a few more billion calculations. you can veiw this output at
Anyone who looks at these tables can easily see the unfunded liability in 1999 dollars is very large. NOW think of this amount in a bank earning 7% each year. How much income should OASI be brining in each year to make the system solvent? Can you picture/imagine a number that is twice what the current OASI tax brings in? Roughly $700 Billion in additional income each an every year needs to be found just to keep the unfunded liability at $10 Trillion. It does nothing for paying down the $10 Trillion.
